MacBook Pro M1 - Excessive GPU/CPU Usage.

[caloneil]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to this, however hoping someone can help me.

I recently purchased the new MacBook Pro M1 silicone chip, and have been playing planet coaster. It runs very well, however my Mac gets extremely hot and the fan sounds like a hair dryer at times. This is unusual as the new M1 Macs are advertised as being almost silent, and very cool.

I had a look in my activity monitor, and my CPU shows as running between 250-350%, and my GPU at 95-99%. I contacted Apple support to check if this was normal - but they advised me this is extremely high and should not be happening as this will damage my Mac very quickly.

Can anyone advise if they are experiencing the same kind of CPU usage, and if there is any fix around this or what I can do?

Thanks.

 

[LN]

I'm not really an expect when it comes to Macs, but does it have a dedicated GPU or is it an integrated one?

To me it sounds like it's throwing everything over the Apple M1 chip. Althought the M1 chip is a 8-core chip, it sounds to me it's not up to the task.

 

[caloneil]

I’m really clueless when it comes to computers as I rarely play games, so I don’t actually know if it is a “dedicated GPU” or not. I just know the apple support woman was shocked when I told her that my CPU was running at 250%. She wasn’t sure if it’s just the games fault, or if there was a problem with my mac.

 

[Levin89]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to this, however hoping someone can help me.

I recently purchased the new MacBook Pro M1 silicone chip, and have been playing planet coaster. It runs very well, however my Mac gets extremely hot and the fan sounds like a hair dryer at times. This is unusual as the new M1 Macs are advertised as being almost silent, and very cool.

I had a look in my activity monitor, and my CPU shows as running between 250-350%, and my GPU at 95-99%. I contacted Apple support to check if this was normal - but they advised me this is extremely high and should not be happening as this will damage my Mac very quickly.

Can anyone advise if they are experiencing the same kind of CPU usage, and if there is any fix around this or what I can do?

Thanks.

I don‘t have an answer, since I’m still waiting for my new MacBook to arrive. But I’ll make sure to try it out once I get it.

Does it get hot right away or after some play time? What graphics quality are you playing it with?

 

[caloneil]

Thank you, yeah it gets hot almost instantly.

 

[Morbad]

This doesn't strike me as abnormal.

I'm not well versed in how heterogeneous CPU architectures report utilization in macOS, but PlanetCoaster is quite CPU intensive and GPU utilization near 100% is typical when frame rates are unconstrained.

If you don't want your M1 running at full load all the time, set a reasonable frame rate cap in the game's graphics options, if this is available.

 

[TiberiusDuval]

Well game is x86/amd64 code, M1 Mac runs arm-code, so system needs to emulate x86/amd64, and that is computationally more or less heavy task, added on whatever game itself needs. No surprise that CPU needs to work a lot.

 

[Razzerman]

Does the Mac run hot with any other games/apps, or is it solely Planet Coaster?

 

[caloneil]

This doesn't strike me as abnormal.

I'm not well versed in how heterogeneous CPU architectures report utilization in macOS, but PlanetCoaster is quite CPU intensive and GPU utilization near 100% is typical when frame rates are unconstrained.

If you don't want your M1 running at full load all the time, set a reasonable frame rate cap in the game's graphics options, if this is available.

strangely I tried to reduce the graphics to low, and my CPU usage went up to 400%+
On ultra graphics - it goes down to around 180/250.

 

[caloneil]

Does the Mac run hot with any other games/apps, or is it solely Planet Coaster?

I don’t play any other games - solely planet coaster as far as I’m aware. In terms of the mac itself it is unbelievably fast without any noise from the fan or heat, no matter what else I am doing. Which is why I’m just a bit concerned as on the Apple advert they advertise the mac being totally silent and “cool” when carrying out high intensive tasks.

 

[Morbad]

strangely I tried to reduce the graphics to low, and my CPU usage went up to 400%+
On ultra graphics - it goes down to around 180/250.

Also entirely normal.

The settings you started with were already GPU limited, so reducing graphics settings allows the CPU to prepare more frames to be sent off to the GPU which can render more of them in a given span of time before becoming limited again.

Conversely, increasing the graphics quality reduces the the frame rate of an already GPU limited workload and thus reduces the demand on the CPU.

Bottlenecks at work.

 

[Razzerman]

I've seen some reviews; looks really impressive performance-wise. I'd certainly stop playing PC until you get another users experience, or some feedback from Frontier/Apple

 

[caloneil]

Also entirely normal.

The settings you started with were already GPU limited, so reducing graphics settings allows the CPU to prepare more frames to be sent off to the GPU which can render more of them in a given span of time before becoming limited again.

Conversely, increasing the graphics quality reduces the the frame rate of an already GPU limited workload and thus reduces the demand on the CPU.

Bottlenecks at work.

I see, thanks. So running this game with the CPU so high is normal? I know you probably don’t use mac - but is it likely to damage the mac in the long term if I was to play this game for hours each day?

 

[LN]

I don’t play any other games - solely planet coaster as far as I’m aware. In terms of the mac itself it is unbelievably fast without any noise from the fan or heat, no matter what else I am doing. Which is why I’m just a bit concerned as on the Apple advert they advertise the mac being totally silent and “cool” when carrying out high intensive tasks.

My honest thought when it comes to Macs. Not really the type of machine to play games on.

 

[caloneil]

I've seen some reviews; looks really impressive performance-wise. I'd certainly stop playing PC until you get another users experience, or some feedback from Frontier/Apple

Apple did say to me that it may be an issue with my mac and I could exchange it with no issues. Luckily I spoke to someone who plays games themselves, and from their own personal experience they said that it was extremely high and not very “normal” for a game to run like this, and making the mac so hot to touch.

 

[caloneil]

My honest thought when it comes to Macs. Not really the type of machine to play games on.

You’re right, but it’s been released on mac so I want to take advantage of it. There must be reasoning behind why it has been released to play on mac.

 

[Zieman]

@OP:
try this:

If you don't want your M1 running at full load all the time, set a reasonable frame rate cap in the game's graphics options, if this is available.

 

[Morbad]

I see, thanks. So running this game with the CPU so high is normal?

Yes. The utilization figures are based off each core being 100%. A well threaded application --including, evidently, PlanetCoaster--can easily use most of the available cycles on most of the available cores.

I know you probably don’t use mac - but is it likely to damage the mac in the long term if I was to play this game for hours each day?

It shouldn't damage the SoC or threaten most of the other hardware in your MacBook, but protracted high temperatures are very bad for batteries. Capping the frame rate or adding supplemental cooling is a good idea.

 

[caloneil]

Yes. The utilization figures are based off each core being 100%. A well threaded application --including, evidently, PlanetCoaster--can easily use most of the available cycles on most of the available cores.



It shouldn't damage the SoC or threaten most of the other hardware in your MacBook, but protracted high temperatures are very bad for batteries. Capping the frame rate or adding supplemental cooling is a good idea.

thank you,

when you say supplemental cooking what do you mean by this?

Is anyone else using the new M1 MacBook to play this and having the same issues?

 

[Morbad]

when you say supplemental cooking what do you mean by this?

Anything that increases ventilation. There should be air intakes on the underside of the system, so simply elevating the system to allow better airflow may help, but there are also laptop coolers that do this while providing active airflow to the underside.